# Subtle inaccuracies in depictions of your city/region in fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2021, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508 "2021-01-14T09:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2021, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/141 "2021-01-17T22:55:05Z")
The Maya Rudolph movie _Away We Go_ from 2009 had a scene that took place in Montreal. I know that city pretty well so I thought it was strange: It did not look like Montreal in the least. Turns out it was shot in Vermont. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2021, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/142 "2021-01-17T23:16:44Z")
Not a particular city, but regional TV series: Northern cities where is only snows in December (for the Christmas special), snow is always light and fluffy, and disappears by the next episode. Plus, there’s no “mud season” as winter gives way to spring. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/143 "2021-01-18T03:47:57Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Well, you can’t put all of that carbon back in the ground. You’ve got a much smaller population pulling water out of the lake. Not to mention that rain levels in any given area probably have much more to do with the local climate than with global warming. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/144 "2021-01-18T13:00:47Z")
How Hoover Dam was configured when the people mostly go away and civilization does go away will have a lot to do with the trajectory of Lake Mead’s level. Of course if the dam gets silted, overtopped, or blown up, Lake Mead will be gone. It’s just a question of when. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/145 "2021-01-18T14:27:48Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Not a particular city, but regional TV series: Northern cities where is only snows in December (for the Christmas special), snow is always light and fluffy, and disappears by the next episode. Plus, there’s no “mud season” as winter gives way to spring. Here is another regional thing—show set in the verdant northeastern United States, such as, say, Scranton, Pennsylvania, but on television look like the dry scrubland of Southern California? Sometimes with palm trees! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/146 "2021-01-18T15:32:01Z")
What always surprised me was how the nice weather in the Northeast lasts barely 6 weeks per year in real life, but if the show has a material amount of outdoor activity, it’s always late April / early May year round. Unless snow or sludge or … is specifically important to the episode. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/147 "2021-01-19T00:15:08Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > > [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > > > Not a particular city, but regional TV series: Northern cities where is only snows in December (for the Christmas special), snow is always light and fluffy, and disappears by the next episode. Plus, there’s no “mud season” as winter gives way to spring. > > Here is another regional thing—show set in the verdant northeastern United States, such as, say, Scranton, Pennsylvania, but on television look like the dry scrubland of Southern California? Sometimes with palm trees! We visited my sister and brother-in-law in South Korea. I was conditioned, after years of **MASH** , to think of South Korea as looking like Southern California. We were driving from Incheon towards Osan AFB and dad and I looked at the vegetation and said “it looks like Wisconsin!” ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/148 "2021-01-19T04:12:29Z")
> [@kitap](#): > > dad and I looked at the vegetation and said “it looks like Wisconsin!” They have Cheese Curd Bushes? ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/149 "2021-01-19T06:19:09Z")
> [@digs](#): > > > [@kitap](#): > > > > dad and I looked at the vegetation nd said “it looks like Wisconsin!” > > They have Cheese Curd Bushes? Ginseng. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/150 "2021-01-19T08:26:00Z")
> [@kitap](#): > > We visited my sister and brother-in-law in South Korea. I was conditioned, after years of **MASH** , to think of South Korea as looking like Southern California. We were driving from Incheon towards Osan AFB and dad and I looked at the vegetation and said “it looks like Wisconsin!” Somewhat similarly, I was in southern California in about 1980 or so (when MASH was still airing), and driving through someplace, and I recall remarking to my buddy, “It looks like South Korea on MASH!” ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/151 "2021-01-19T12:19:50Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Weather in London as depicted in the movies. > > If it’s Christmas, it will be snowing. This is the universal “it’s snows at christmas everywhere” cliche. I’m pretty much sure it snows in every christmas tv show or movie, including south california and Vegas. However, the reality is, that cliche is a New York cliche, not a british one at all. The weather often meant New York had snow around Christmas due to its lattitude and location, and there was also a specialness to it, with the normally noisy traffic 24 hours a day (I believe trucks are allowed in at night only) goes quiet. The song White Christmas might have really been about a homesick Irving Berlin in South California wishing he was back home in New York at Christmas. However, it became a cliche which means snow is Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/152 "2021-01-19T12:32:49Z")
> [@Smid](#): > > The song White Christmas might have really been about a homesick Irving Berlin in South California wishing he was back home in New York at Christmas. However, it became a cliche which means snow is Christmas. It predates Hollywood - Christmas Cards showing snowy London have been in existence since Victorian times, when it made sense as we went through a mini ice age in the early 1800s. [Some people blame it on Dickens](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181217-how-dickens-made-white-christmas-a-myth). It just hasn’t held true for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/153 "2021-01-19T12:47:02Z")
“South California”? There’s a subtle inaccuracy for you. ---
**Author:** ![Asylum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Asylum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asylum)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/154 "2021-01-19T13:25:49Z")
I live in Annapolis, Maryland and there’s a scene in Patriot Games that was actually shot downtown. Harrison Ford comes out of the Naval Academy south gate (someone tell Jack Ryan he can park on base) and he jumps in his car to rush off to the highway. Cut to an aerial shot of him driving up Main Street. First, it’s amazing he go there that fast. He wasn’t that far away but that’s teleportation speed. Second, if you’re trying to get to the highway that’s the worst place to go. Downtown is full of stoplights and pedestrians and it’s further from the highway than where he started. Doesn’t really bother me though, because they got a cool shot of downtown and the church where I was married. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/155 "2021-01-19T13:30:06Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > What’s a typical daytime temperature in January in Chicago? [A good overview of Chicago average temperatures by month.](https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=WN4GYMfDDNuqtQaRjYmoCw&q=average+january+temperature+in+chicago&oq=average+janurary+temperature&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgcIABDJAxANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANOggIABCxAxCDAToFCC4QsQM6CwguELEDEMcBEKMCOgIILjoICC4QsQMQgwE6BQgAELEDOggILhDHARCjAjoLCC4QsQMQyQMQkwI6CAguEMcBEK8BOgIIADoRCC4QsQMQxwEQowIQyQMQkwI6BQgAEMkDOgUIABCSAzoKCAAQsQMQyQMQCjoICAAQsQMQyQM6CwgAEMkDEBYQChAeUKoMWOk1YJpGaABwAHgAgAGRAYgBwA-SAQQyNy4xmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab) ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/156 "2021-01-19T14:00:44Z")
> [@divemaster](#): > > I agree with those who can’t figure out the Louisiana accents. New Orleans is not a Cajun accent. It’s not even southern. The friends/colleagues I’ve known from New Orleans speak with an accent that is undifferentiated from New York (Brookyn? Bronx? – I’m not from NY, so I’m not sure). But I guarantee a native New Yorker speaking with a native New Orleanser would be hard pressed to tell the difference. I remember visiting New Orleans for the first time, and wondering why there were so many New Yorkers around… > [@](#): > > And any show that depicts “y’all” as a singular (as in, addressing one person as “y’all”) just lets me know that person has never spent one second in the South. This is one of my huge linguistic pet peeves. Especially as I read it as the writer thinking of “y’all” as “that silly dialect word Southerners use instead of the _real_ word, aren’t they quaint?” When in fact by the rules of English grammar “y’all” is a perfectly legal, thoroughly logical contraction of “you all” that, like its cousins “yinz” and “you guys”, plugs a hole in English grammar: the lack of a second-person plural pronoun. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/157 "2021-01-19T14:14:21Z")
My favorite variation is the one that emphasizes, when I’m referring to you as a group, I’m not just generalizing, I really do mean every one of you: _all o’ y’all._ ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/158 "2021-01-19T14:41:01Z")
It’s typically pronounced “all-a-y’all”. And the ‘-a-’ is “swallowed” (don’t know the right term), so spoken quickly it sounds like “all y’all” (and over time will become that because people who don’t know the term will say what they heard). ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/159 "2021-01-19T15:12:19Z")
And they say that English has no second person plural… ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2021, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508/160 "2021-01-20T15:58:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There’s not much I can contribute here, since Cleveland seldom features in fiction written by non-locals… But there is a classic science fiction story that involves a large object from space (actually a huge person) landing in Lake Erie, and causing a tsunami to wash over the city. I don’t remember this film at all. Any idea what the title was? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subtle-inaccuracies-in-depictions-of-your-city-region-in-fiction/930508.md?page=9)